meander
by jjajangmyeon
Summary: Charlotte Young is Peter Parker's soulmate. Or maybe she was (emphasis on the past-tense) his soulmate? ; A look at the life of someone who survived the snap. [Endgame Spoilers] [Soulmate AU, Peter Parker x OC]


**Memoria Memoria  
****夢から 覚めた時も  
****二人なら 繋がって  
****はるかはるかかなたへ**

**memoria memoria  
****even when I wake from my dream  
****the two of us, we are connected  
****from far, far away**

**-gfriend**

* * *

**MCU Timeline: **Pre-Infinity War - Post-Endgame

* * *

Charlotte Young is Peter Parker's soulmate.

Or maybe she _was_ his soulmate?

It all happened so fast. One second he's on a bus heading to a field trip, the next, some doughnut-spaceship was hovering over New York and she was frantically trying to contact him, the next, literally half the world was vanishing in front of her.

The moment they met seemed like such a throwaway instance in time. There wasn't any fanfare or an immediate attraction to each other. It was mostly a "Woah, I just got partnered with this person that I'd seen around school a few times for a Journalism project and they happened to utter the words that have been etched under my collarbone since I was born… okay."

It was probably strange how much they didn't care. While they certainly didn't stay strangers, they definitely didn't experience something like love at first sight. It probably didn't help that she was a _freshman_ and he was a _senior_. Sure, age is just a number, but sometimes that number really matters.

They called themselves "Platonic Soulmates." Most of the representations they'd seen of soulmates were overly dramaticized movies where the paired souls latch onto each other as soon as the fated words leave their mouths, but the only thing that they felt was basically "Oh, that's kind of cool." There weren't really rules about how to deal with the whole situation anyway, so they figured it was fine. No one really knew enough about soulmates to know if it was unconventional. It was actually extremely rare to even have one, so they pretty much were setting their own rules.

Their relationship mostly consisted of her sending cat memes to him, and him trying to convince her that dogs were superior. He always called to make sure that she got home safe since took the bus home. She'd send him pictures of the various dogs being carried in bags on the subway when she knew he was stressed. He teased her when she flushed as red as a cherry when her crush walked by them in the hallway. She teased him when _his_ crush walked by them and he crashed into an open locker door. And they were fine with that, and continued on that way.

May was overjoyed when she meets Charlotte, essentially adopting her as soon as she stepped through the doorway of their apartment. May was perhaps _more_ excited than either of them about the situation, mostly because Charlotte was an awkward, but endearing fourteen year old that didn't mind being dressed up or dragged around the mall by her. Peter even joked that they might be the real soulmates.

Charlotte's parents were a little less ecstatic because, well, who wouldn't worry when their daughter, who was in her first year of high school, ends up finding her soulmate, who was in his last year of high school? She actually laughed at how terrified he looked when her dad glared at him. They eventually came to see that they had no intentions of being anything more than friends. Her dad even helped him tie his bow tie when he went on a date with another senior.

When she discovered his secret identity, the day passed by like any other. At some point, they'd realized that, while the soulmate bond they held didn't force them together, or let them reach each other's mind or anything like that, they did somewhat start to have inklings of any extreme emotions that the other would have. She called him one day, after he'd just taken down some criminal and gotten fairly injured in the process, distraught and panicked, worried about him without really knowing why. He told her that same evening, seeing that his soulmate probably deserved the truth. She just responded with a small frown, a tight hug, a wish for him to stay safe, and an offer of some of the mac and cheese she'd just made.

It's after that that she met Tony Stark for the first time. Peter brought her along with him, May, and Ned to the Stark Industries facility to some certificate-giving event for the interns. Their interaction during the event is fairly minimal, she just shakes his hand. Once it was over, however, as the other guests started to dwindle, he pulls her and Peter aside, giving them some gadgets and instructions to always be aware and safe. He tells them that being soulmates is rare and kind of beautiful—he also fake-gags at that—and that some people may want to use that against them, may want to _hurt_ them with it.

They left a little weary, feeling that something was going to happen, but not sure what.

...

Tony Stark was absolutely correct that the hurt of being soulmates really could be used against them. It just turned out, it wasn't going to be someone intentionally trying to take advantage of their bond, it was just going to be an unintentional casualty in a much bigger event.

Charlotte was sitting at the dining table in her apartment when the Snap occurred. She hadn't gotten any sleep at all, as she was glued to her computer screen then entire night looking for any semblance of an update. She was in school the previous day when the spaceship came to kickoff the tragedy that would haunt their—_half,_ of their—lives. Knowing that Peter wouldn't sit still while something like that was going on, she desperately tried to contact him, locking herself in one of the empty classrooms with one of the devices, a simple communicator that would patch her through to Peter's suit, that Tony had given to her. For a while, there was nothing.

"Charlie?"

"Peter!" She cried out. "Where are you?"

"Stay safe, Charlie," He said hurriedly. She could hear a commotion going on around him, but couldn't really identify what was going on. "I'll be home soon."

That was all she heard before the connection cut out. She screamed in frustration, knocking over a chair. She could _feel_ his anxiety as she paced the floor of the room. Charlotte wasn't sure exactly how long she was in there, but it had to have been a long time because the school was almost empty when she was finally forced to leave by a teacher that had been patrolling the grounds.

When she got home, May called her asking if she knew anything about what was going on with Peter. Charlotte felt guilty, but she didn't want to give May any hope by relaying the last words she'd heard from him. The gnawing in her chest was far too strong for her to feel like everything was alright with him. So she said no.

Her parents were worried because she seemed almost catatonic as she slumped in front of her computer at her desk. She didn't speak, didn't eat, didn't sleep. They had just managed to bring her out to sit at the table for breakfast when it happened.

"Come on honey, you have to eat."

"I'm sure we'll get more news in a while."

"We can go order something to eat later, for dinner. Your classes are cancelled for today, right?" Her dad said with a slight frown. He was on edge as well, his foot nervously tapping against the floorboard in a rapid rhythm. "Your mom and I still have work, but we can go pick up dinner after work and after we pick up your brother from dayc—woah, was that scream from next do—"

They all actually watched it happen. Her baby brother was sitting in his little booster seat at the table, messily eating his cereal. And _then _he was gone. It was almost impossible to process—how could someone turn into dust just like that? how could _her brother _turn into dust just like that?—and they were just still for a few seconds, for a few tense heartbeats.

And _then _Charlotte was falling. It was like the ground was being pulled out from under her. She couldn't remember how to breathe, it was like she was being gutted. Maybe she was being turned into dust as well? She wasn't really sure, but it _felt _like it. It _felt_ like her soul was being ripped out of her.

Then it stopped.

It stopped.

It _all_ stopped, and she felt like something in her was empty, and she _knew _he was gone.

* * *

**Year One**

The first month after _that day_, she stayed over with May quite often. Her parents understood. Even though they were rattled—_destroyed—_by the disappearance of their son, they still had each other and they still had a daughter. May was _alone._

Neither May nor Charlotte really accepted that Peter was gone. Both of them were hoping that he'd come stumbling through the door.

But with the constant hollowness echoing through her, she knew that her bond was already telling her what to expect. And May knew it as well, she couldn't ignore the sluggishness in Charlie's movements, the periodic blankness in her eyes—no matter how much Charlotte tried to hide it.

Until some confirmation really came to them, they had to hope, didn't they?

At the end of that month, however, Tony Stark did come stumbling through May's door, _without_ Peter in tow.

The greetings and pleasantries were completely glossed over. Tony was gaunt, sickly looking and clearly not in the best state. He seemed like he could collapse into himself at any second.

"Peter…" Tony started quietly.

"Didn't make it?" May whispered.

"No."

"What happened?" May didn't look at him as she asked, staring straight at the photograph of five year old Peter, smiling with the biggest grin—missing two teeth, sitting on top of a bookshelf.

"We… we were in space, fighting an enemy, Thanos… We lost. He's gone." He croaked out.

"Oh…" May breathed out, swaying slightly as she processed his words. "Oh."

"I'm so sorry May."

"Thank you for letting us know." She said blankly, though her eyes were welling up with tears. May stood up shakily and excused herself to go to the bathroom. Tony winced as they heard her sobs through the door, before turning to look at Charlotte.

"Are… are you okay kid?"

Charlotte sat still through the entire conversation that'd just passed. She probably didn't even breathe. "He wasn't alone, was he? When he…" She said softly, staring at her hands that were clenched tightly in her lap.

"No, I was there with him."

"Th—that's good. That's good."

He realized that she wasn't going to continue after that, but he really had to ask. "Really, you okay? You… you lost a _soulmate_, it's fine if you're not."

"Thank you for being there for him." Charlotte ignored his query, not really sure how she could answer it.

"I would have never left him alone. I'm really sorry kid."

She finally looked at him. "I know you wouldn't have. And I don't blame you _at all_, sir." Tony looked like his heart broke even further with that statement, but she continued on. "He really looked up to you, sir. I hope you know that."

He let out a shaky breath. "You… and May, you two don't have to be strangers, alright? You need anything, just give me a call."

"Thank you," Charlotte murmured, walking up to the picture of Peter that May had been staring at earlier. "I hope you can find some peace, sir."

…

Classes were disturbingly empty. People were starting to go again, but it felt like they were being haunted. Not by ghosts, but by memories.

The freshman class, which had started the year with five hundred students was now down to two hundred and seventeen students. Her biology class that had been so full that they had to pull in extra chairs at the beginning of the year now only had a measly two rows of students.

Journalism had no teacher. The student body president was gone. One of the lunch ladies, the vice principal, half the math teachers, all of her section in band, the _crossing guard_. Gone.

The start of sophomore year was even worse. Aside from the students and faculty that had vanished, now there were a number that had moved or whose parents decided they would be home-schooled. Everyone was almost too terrified to go back to their regular lives.

After the first day of class that school year, Charlotte walked by the bakery near the school, where she and her now-gone best friend would let time pass while waiting for the bus. It was closed, a note on the door saying that the owner was gone.

All of them, gone.

Absolutely, without a doubt, gone.

* * *

**Year Two**

The world looked like it was falling apart. For a little bit after _that day_, officials tried to do some repairs on infrastructure and whatnot. It just proved to be a pointless effort, however, since they quickly realized that resources had been halved as well.

While limited resources were certainly a problem before, they were an even larger problem now. The ratio of people to resources actually _stayed the fucking same_, and almost immediately shifted so that there was much more people than resources.

If an ecosystem did not lose half of its inhabitants, the disturbances it experienced were still enough to send them on the brink of extinction. Food was lost, not only for humans, but for other species. The suddenness and extensiveness of the loss did not leave creatures with any time to adapt to the situation, or for anyone to try to mitigate the impacts.

Some stores of water and fuels became unusable because the workers that were refining them disappeared. There were people watching over dams or food production that vanished, resulting in either the contamination or complete loss of reservoirs and food supplies.

And coupled with the growing global instability in food, resources, infrastructure, money—_everything—_was a crippling worldwide sense of depression.

Charlotte knew that if there was something that she wasn't alone in, it was being fucking miserable. Everyone was scrambling to survive, but simultaneously riddled with an enormous amount of guilt because they _had_ survived.

...

At some point, she was visited by Black Widow and Captain America—Natasha and Steve, they corrected her—and it was a little enlightening.

It was almost like she could see them ageing in front of her own eyes, she could feel the guilt, the shame, the anxiety, and the slightest bit of hope radiating off of them.

She wasn't entirely sure why they were there. The world was spiraling. If the first year since _that day_ was spent processing and getting used to the fact that half of the fucking world was gone, the second year was spent scrambling to save the rapidly crashing political systems and economies. But no matter how much effort was put in to try to prop those systems up, there were always opportunists there to take advantage and terrorize.

Charlotte has seen some reports of their efforts to make sure that the people that are left, the _survivors_, can live in some semblance of peace, and she was thankful for it. She couldn't really fathom how they had the energy or strength to keep going, but she was grateful that there were people still trying.

"You're Charlotte Young, aren't you?" Charlotte turned from her seat on the bench at the picnic table at the park, looking for the voice behind her, to see Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff, heroes that she'd looked up to since she was in kindergarten.

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, you can just call me Steve." He grinned at her tiredly, holding out his hand for her to shake.

"Uh, okay si—Steve." Charlotte grasped his hand a little shakily, a little bit star-struck. "Did you need something from me?"

"Peter Parker," Natasha chimed in, but softened as she saw her tensing. "You're his soulmate?"

"Yes, ma'am. I a—I _was_." She was sure that if they were anyone else, they would have winced at the past-tense.

"We just wanted to check in on you. Very few people have soulmates, I've only met a handful in my life." Natasha confirmed.

Charlotte was a little surprised at that statement, if there was anyone that would have met a bunch of people with soulmates, wouldn't it by the spy that had done missions around the world? And why would they want to check on _her_ of all people? It wasn't like she was of any importance. "Oh, I'm okay."

"Are you?" Steve questioned her, concern flooding his features.

"Well," Charlotte eyed them a little warily. This was not a situation she'd ever imagined herself to be in at any point in her life, much less when she was fifteen. A junior in high school, with a dead soulmate who was a superhero, having a therapy session of sorts with two members of the Avengers? "I'm _trying _to be."

"Do you mind if I ask you what it's like?" _To lose a soulmate_ were the words they all knew went unspoken.

"It… it's hard. You know, it's not like we were in love, or even best friends, but I guess we were still anchored together in some way. We were just supposed to be _there _for each other, but now he's _not_ here." Charlotte was surprised she said so much, never really talking about her feelings with anyone. It just never felt right to bring it up since _everyone_ had lost someone. "And I can feel that he's missing. It feels like I'm empty."

Steve looked like his heart was breaking for her. "I'm sorry that you have to go through this."

"I'm sorry too," She smiles wryly at them, before squeezing her eyes shut as she felt tears start to form. "I don't think anyone would have imagined that something like this would have happened."

"Definitely not." Natasha replied.

"Can… can I just ask why? Do you know _why_?"

Both of them looked at each other a little unsurely, probably wondering if it would be okay to tell her. They seemed to communicate through their gazes before Natasha shrugged and answered her questions. "No one really quite understands. Thanos wanted to halve all living creatures in the universe so that it would be in balance."

Charlotte stared at them in disbelief. "...That sounds absolutely fucking—pardon my language—stupid."

They both let out a dry chuckle, since neither of them actually disagreed with her statement. "It really does."

"I guess I should find some relief in the fact that I don't sympathize with some sociopath, but honestly, I don't think anything would really make it better."

"I-_we_ understand," Steve affirmed. "There's really no concrete way to make it better. But," He paused, trying to find the right words. "I hope you find some peace in this all, Charlotte."

Charlotte startled at his statement, an echo of what she'd told Tony Stark in the year before, wondering if he'd told them what she'd said or if it was just a strange coincidence. She blinked away her shock, before looking at them seriously, wishing that her reply would get through to them sincerely. "I hope you both find some peace as well."

* * *

**Year Three**

Pepper Stark, née Potts, invited her and May to her daughter's, Morgan, birthday party.

"I'm so glad you two could make it out." Pepper smiled softly at both of them.

Charlotte let out a small smile. "Thank you for inviting us ma'am."

"Oh, it's no problem at all! We're really grateful to have you here."

It wasn't a huge party—certainly not like it would have been before _that day—_but there were still quite a few people. The only one she recognized other than the Starks, however, was Colonel Rhodes, who she'd seen speaking on tv from time to time. May looked at her concernedly as she went over to talk to him, but Charlotte just waved her off and motioned to the table filled with fruits, indicating she'd be fine.

When she looked at Tony Stark, she felt really bad. He tried to hide it, but she could tell that seeing her was causing him distress. No one had really explicitly told her that, but she _knew_ it. There would be no other reason for any of the other Avengers to try to talk to her if it weren't true, if he didn't feel guilty about what happened to her—_happened to Peter_. She tried to keep away from him so he wouldn't have to feel that way, not on a day that was supposed to be filled with joy like this one.

"Kid, thanks for coming." Tony called out over the noise in the room since he was a few feet, and people, away from her.

"Thank you for having me, sir." She smiled weakly as he moved to stand in front of her. He looked a lot better than the last time she'd seen him. Healthier. _Happier_.

"You're graduating this year, aren't you?" He questioned.

"Yes, sir."

"Exciting." Tony paused, seeming like he knew what he wanted to say, but not really _how_ to say it. He stared at her searchingly, before continuing. "...you going to college?"

"I… I'm not sure yet. I applied to some, but…" Charlotte trailed off, fixing her gaze onto the ground.

"You don't feel like you can start yet?"

She gazed at her feet for a few seconds, then she sighed. "No. No, I don't."

Tony looked at her with sympathy, placing a hand awkwardly on her shoulder. "He wouldn't have wanted you to feel guilty, you know? So don't hold back from anything you want to do. But you can take all the time you need as well."

"I… I know. Thank you, sir." "He… he wouldn't have wanted you to feel guilty either."

…

Graduating was bittersweet. They were going to be the last class leaving Midtown with half of what they entered with. The crop of kids following after them obviously lost some of their classmates while they were younger, but they got to enter high school with a slightly fresher start.

It was supposed to be a really happy occasion, but no one could ignore how empty the auditorium was. How there were no students graduating with 'L,' last names. How the person that ended up valedictorian broke down because they always thought their best friend was supposed to have that honor.

In simple terms, it was complete mess of a cry-fest.

How were they supposed to start a new chapter when they couldn't even get themselves to turn the page?

* * *

**Year Four**

She decided to take some time off before going to college. Sometimes she felt so tired, college just didn't feel like the smartest move.

Was going to college even going to feel the same? Charlotte and her best friend had always had a goal to go to college together, just a stupid daydream type thing they'd imagined since they were in elementary school. As they got older, they realized that it was very much possible that they wouldn't get into the same colleges, but they still wanted to go for it.

They didn't even get to try.

So she worked. She had a part-time job at a small cafe. The owner had survived, but their family didn't, so it was closed down for a while.

Charlotte also volunteered at the hospital, in the newborn ward. Usually the process would take awhile to be admitted into the program, but they were so low on numbers that they pretty much let anyone in after a background check.

It was a small bit of reprieve, seeing the babies that were still so innocent and full of wonder.

Could she ever be like that again?

She was the same age as Peter now. For the first time, she started thinking about what being a soulmate really meant. Would they have gotten closer? They'd only known each other a few months before the world went to shit. Before he _died_.

Would there be more than just being aware of each other's emotions? Would they have become more connected? Would they have become best friends? Would they have fallen in love?

Like Natasha mentioned a few years ago, soulmates were extremely rare, and generally, kept extremely under wraps. Some studies before _that day_ estimated that less than one percent of the population had soulmate marks. The amount of confirmed meetings was somewhere in the thirties, and this was from records dating back two centuries.

No publicly available research or data mentioned what would happen after meeting either, much less what would happen if one of them died.

Was it always going to feel empty? For the rest of her life? How long could she go on living like this?

Despite the monotonous routine she'd dropped herself into, the year didn't even go by fast. Time passed by agonizingly slow. It seemed as if the universe wanted to trap them in despair and was conspiring in a scheme to keep them from moving forward.

* * *

**Year Five**

Charlotte Young was officially older than Peter Parker ever got to be, and that hurt so much. Her parents and May celebrated with her, having a small dinner in her apartment. She received a few messages and small trinkets from the Avengers that she'd met over the years. She found their continued interaction with her to be pretty strange, but she knew that her grief was a weight hanging over Tony Stark, and that his grief was a weight that was hanging over everyone else that fought in that battle.

She'd never been huge on celebrating her birthday, and that only increased in the years after _that day_, but this year was particularly bad. Charlotte tried to go through the day with a smile for the parental figures in her life, picking at the food they'd made, fawning over the gifts.

But then she passed by a mirror. She saw a few of the letters of _those words_ etched into her peeking out from the neckline of her shirt and she lost it. She didn't cry, not at first at least, but _wow_, she thought she'd gotten hit by a train. Suddenly she couldn't stand, couldn't breathe. Everything was just too much.

Charlotte got to finish high school. Got to go to college. Got to _turn nineteen_.

Peter didn't.

The minutes passed by in a blur, she didn't even know how, but she ended up in the bathroom hunched over the toilet as she dry heaved. May tied her hair back and rubbed her shoulders, kneeling next to her.

They were silent for a while, May not wanting to push her to talk about anything she didn't want to.

"It's just so fucking difficult to be okay. My brother is gone. My best friend is gone. My favorite teacher is gone. The freaking bakery owner is gone." Charlotte sobbed, wiping her tears that were angrily spilling from her eyes. "My soulmate is gone. And it happened in maybe the worst way possible. They just turned into fucking dust!"

"I… I know sweetheart."

"I'm so sorry for springing this on you, you lost him too."

"Oh honey…" May was tearing up as well, but she pulled her into a tight embrace, then moved back so she could look her in the eyes. "It's okay to not be fine, you know? You were just fourteen when world was turned upside down. And yes, it does hurt for me too. It never stops. But you were also his _soulmate_, Charlie. You were connected in ways that most people don't understand, and will never understand. But we'll get through, okay? We're going to survive this for them. For him."

"Okay," Charlotte whispered, calming down a little, but still feeling a little miserable. "Okay…"

* * *

**Reset**

Charlotte was walking home after class when a bird appeared out of thin air in front of her. She jumped back in surprise, but brushed it off, thinking that she must have been ridiculously out of it to not see a bird flying by her.

Then she saw a _person_ pop into existence in front of her.

Wide eyed, Charlotte froze in the middle of the sidewalk, watching random people materialize all over the street. Her chest felt like it was burning and about to explode. _What is going on? This… it can't be the people that were dusted, could it? _

She jolted back into the fray around her when she felt her phone vibrate in her hand. Trying to gather herself, she checked her phone and realized she probably wouldn't be able to gather herself at all for a while.

The display on her phone showed a _new _notification. A text from her best friend who'd been _gone_ for _five fucking years._

As people in the vicinity tried to come to copes with the situation, she took off in a sprint towards her home. Her parents wouldn't be home yet, but maybe…

She almost face planted a number of times during her frantic run, and actually did crash into a few people and objects. She didn't even bother apologizing because a bunch of them were running as well.

Stopping in front of her door, she was overcome with anxiety. _I… I shouldn't get my hopes up, this… Maybe this isn't real? Maybe I'm dreaming. Maybe __**I'm **__dead? I don't know, I don't know, I don't—_

Charlotte closed her eyes as she opened the door to her apartment, trying to not to expect anything. She couldn't bring herself to open her eyes, repeating in her mind that she would count down from three and then open them, but every time she finished the count down, her eyes were still glued shut.

After the fifth time, she felt something hit her legs.

Startled by the sudden contact, her eyes flew open to see her _vanished_ baby brother hugging her legs. Her _vanished _brother who, now, was very much _there._

She dropped down to her knees and pulled her brother into a hug, letting out brokenly happy sobs as he babbled and hugged her back.

Charlotte wasn't sure just how long she was there, kneeling on the floor of her apartment, holding her brother. It felt like a dream. Her parents eventually came home—much earlier than they normally would—and joined in the cry-fest, her brother looking confused, happy, and annoyed at the love all at the same time. She could hear all the other screams and sobs in the apartment building, all the happy, _impossible_ reunions.

Her parents eventually told her later that night that they saw these strange portals opening in the sky on the news, that it looked like there was a fight going on somewhere upstate. The burn in her chest became apparent again as they mentioned it, but she didn't want to think anything of it.

…

The next morning, red-eyed and puffy-faced, she made her way over to May's apartment. Charlotte knew that she had some missed notifications from her left unseen on her phone, but she couldn't bring herself to look at it after all that had happened. It was just too much to process.

May eventually got into contact with her parents though, who forced her to go over to her apartment. She inhaled and exhaled deeply, trying to prepare herself before knocking on the door. May answered it, and for a split-second, Charlotte was ready for it all to have gone wrong. For her to say Peter wasn't back.

But then she moved to the side, and it was obvious that worry wasn't necessary.

It was pointless.

Because he was.

He was back.

He was _alive_.

Peter smiled at her, looking exactly how she'd always remembered him. "Hey, Charlie."

"Peter." She didn't move towards him, not sure if her legs would even cooperate if she tried.

"You're older than me now, huh?" He chuckled awkwardly, but made his way towards her.

"I guess so," Charlotte replied, staring at him through watery eyes. He was standing right in front of her after _five _years, but it didn't seem like it was possible at all. She reached her left hand out to cradle the side of his face. "...Are you real?"

Peter placed his hand over hers, trying to calm the trembling. "I am."

"Okay…" As the tears started pouring down both their faces, he pulled her into a tight embrace. The burning in her chest that had been present since the day before finally settled into a comfortable warmth because _he was home. _"Okay…"

* * *

**Year Zero**

She tried to be strong for Peter.

Even though the immediate moments after his return were filled with joy, it very quickly settled into '_holy fuck, what the fuck even happened, what do we do now?!'_

She could see it, he was fucking destroyed by the loss of Tony.

So Charlotte powered through. She knew that he must be miserable, she could _feel_ it. She didn't want to add to it by letting him see how lost she was. How she was still sinking into anxiety so much because, despite the people that vanished not feeling the five years that passed by at all, those five years definitely happened. She was trying so hard to be happy, to be _normal_ so that he could feel normal as well.

A few days after the funeral, they found themselves sitting in the living room of his apartment while May was at work. They spent the morning cleaning out the dust and dirt that that accumulated in his room over the past few years, since May never really had the courage or want to clean it out.

She was curled up on the couch, wrapped in one of the decorative blankets May always had out, and he was lying down on the floor in front of her.

"What was it like? When I was gone?" _When I was dead?_ Was what he obviously wanted to say, but couldn't.

"Well, uhm. Are you sure you want to hear it?" Charlotte worried, knowing that the answer wouldn't really be easy to put into coherent words or to listen to. "It was like part of me was suddenly empty. Like… you know, when you're watching a movie and you really like it, but it's eventually over, and you don't know what to do with yourself? Your chest hurts, and you don't breathe for a while, and you need it to come back and continue, but _it doesn't_? It's a lot like that, but _worse_, because at some point you move on from that film. This _stays_. It was like the anchor holding me here was gone, and I was just floating aimlessly."

She could see him out of the corner of her eye. Peter looked really guilty and defeated at her words, like he'd expected it, but didn't really want to have it confirmed. "I… I'm sorry you had to go through this."

"You know, we'll… we'll have to go through this again eventually. One of us will. But this," Charlotte murmured resignedly. "It was a lot, because the world fell apart at the same time."

A few beats of silence filled the air around them before Peter spoke up again. "Sometimes, you still feel like I'm missing, don't you?"

Charlotte turned away from him, looking towards the ceiling. "Why do you say that?"

"I can feel it. To some degree, I can feel that… emptiness you described."

The guilt almost rolled off her at his words. "I… I never wanted you to experience this."

Peter sat up, getting her to look at him. "You don't have to pretend everything's fine, you know? Not for me, not for anyone."

She stared at him blankly, then let out a shuddery breath. "Alright. I'll try."

"You know, I wish I could have been there for you."

She laughed a little weakly. "I wish you could have been there too."

Peter looked determined as he uttered his next words. "But I'm here now."

"...you are here now." Charlotte agreed, slightly breathless at the intensity in his gaze.

He reached out to grab one of her hands, squeezing it tightly. "I'll be here for you now."

...

It was all different. It felt different. Peter told her about some of the things he'd been able to find out. How, aside from Tony, Natasha had also sacrificed herself so that everyone could get a second chance. So that everyone could _live_. And how the eternally way-too-good-a-person for this universe Captain Rogers finally just lived a life for himself.

She felt lighter and heavier at the same time. Because her brother is back, her best friend is back, her _soulmate _is back. But it was just so _sad_ to think about the fact that two heroes that had been around all of her life were gone. It was sad to realize that _Steve Rogers_ wasn't really going to be around anymore. That the three Avengers that had taken the time and effort to check on her were just as amazing to everyone else as they were to her. The last five years had felt like an insane state of limbo, but this felt like the _end _of something.

The end of _something_, but not _everything._

* * *

**Day One**

"Are you ready?"

"Mm," Charlotte smiled softly at Peter as he walked into her room. Her mom probably let him in, and he'd definitely encountered her little brother, if the marker scribbled all over his hands were any indicator. "Are _you _ready?"

"Mm." Peter smiled back at her, leaning against her desk as she sat in the chair in front of it, finishing up writing in her planner. "Happy offered to drive us over to the orientation, so we don't have to commute there."

"Oh, that's nice!" They applied to a bunch of schools, but both ended up settling on Empire State University, since neither of them could really stomach moving far away from their homes or their families.

Peter noticed the nerves that were starting to course through him, but knew that they weren't actually his. He put a firm hand on her shoulder. "We'll be fine, Charlie."

"I guess we will be." She grinned at him, standing up from her chair.

"Come on, squirt." He beamed, patting her head. Even with the years that had gone by for her, she was still barely past his shoulders in height. They went out into the living room, Peter moving to interlock their hands, swinging them as they walked. "Happy won't be happy if we keep him waiting!"

"Hey, respect your elders!" She cried out, while waving to her mom and brother with her free hand, before heading out the door.

"Happy?"

"No, _me!_"

* * *

**a/n:** hello all! I was caught in the feels by Endgame and have yet to escape. I watched it on Thursday, and started writing this almost immediately after. I aged Peter up a tad so that he'd be eighteen before the snap. This fic wasn't really fluffy or romantic, it can probably read as either the start of a romance or a completely platonic relationship all the way through. This was truly meant to be a "What would it have been like to be a civilian that survived the snap?" kind of tale.

I hope you enjoyed!


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